It is very difficult to judge
the culinary value of Vietnamese cinnamon; the quality
that was imported to Eastern Europe in the days of the Cold War was poor,
similar to low-quality cassia. There are indications that Vietnam
has better stuff to offer, but it’s not yet widely available in the West.

Vietnamese cinnamon bark contains 1 to 7% of essential oil;
this is, at its upper limit, considerably more than found in other cinnamon
species. In composition, Vietnamese cinnamon oil resembles that of
Chinese
cinnamon, i. e., mostly cinnamaldehyde with only traces of eugenol.

Cinnamaldehyde is also the main constituent of Vietnamese cinnamon
root oil, but the leaf oil seems to be of different, yet unknown (to me)
composition.

See Sri Lanka Cinnamon for cinnamon,
Chinese Cinnamon for cassia and
Indonesian Cinnamon for canella and
related forms. Designation in the style of Saigon cinnamon refer
to Saigon [Sài Gòn, today Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh]
as the main trading port for this commodity; the plant is not cultivated
around Ho-Chi-Minh City, but grows much further in the north.

The botanical species epithet loureiroi is in honour to
João de Loureiro (1717–1791), a Jesuit who travelled in
South East Asia and reported a detailed description of the Vietnamese
flora. In older literature, the name of the plants is given erroneously
as Cinnamomum loureirii.

Saigon or Viet­namese cinnamon has now rather vanished from the European
market. It has been much traded in East European countries before the fall of
the Iron Curtain, but, for its low quality, is now hardly found outside
Vietnam.

Vietnamese cinnamon frequently appears in North Vietnamese (Hanoi [Hà Nội] style) beef
soup (pho bo [phở bò]). This specialty is made of bones, vegetables
and meat by boiling these ingredients for as much as 12 hours; cinnamon and
star anise are added for the last few hours. The broth
is served as hot as possible with noodles, boiled meat, thin slices of raw
beef, a variety of different vegetables and herbs (for example, coriander or mint leaves
or young onion bulbs), raw egg yolk, chile and garlic. If you
ever come to Hanoi, don’t miss it! On the topic of South Vietnamese soups, see
Vietnamese coriander.